Th US only supports the spread of "democracy" when it is in its best interest, and when the party elected is one that the US likes or supports.
Otherwise, the democratic process doesn't work in the US's favor or for the US, and the US then wants regime change of some sort to institute a more
US, and in the case of the Middle East, Israeli friendly/favorable government.

U.S. and Israel fears democracy in the Middle East otherwise, it will not be able subjugate us Arabs. U.S. says it gives aid to Egypt - that's
military aid to suppress the people. The Egyptian police that is throwing the tear gas canister and gun shot - all made in U.S.A. Israel's Netanyahu
said that the protesters are against democracy and talking rubbish that the Islamic extremists will take over. Egyptians are intellectuals and fed up
with the government corruption.

hezbgal- Myself, as an U.S. citizen, want to express my solidarity with the all the people's of the Middle East and the rest of the world, who want
freedom and democracy in their own countries.
"To be sure, Hosni Mubarak, Israel's longtime ally, deserves all the rath being directed at him. The best time to make any big, hard decision is when
you are at your maximium strength. You'll always think and act more clearly. For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had all the leverage he
could he could ever want to truly reform Egypt's economy and build a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void between his authoritarian
state and the Muslim Brotherhood. But Mubarak deliberately maintained the political vacuum between himself and the Islamists so that he could always
tell the world, 'It's either me or them.' Now he is trying to reform in a panic with no leverage. Too late."

I am sorry. I only fear what is about to happen. Egypt will not remain "secular" for very much longer.

I have no hatred for the good people of Egypt. But they have turned so far from the West that what vestiges remain are about to be swept away as
Islamic law gains ascendancy. I wish very much for the people Egypt to turn, just ever so briefly, and look over their shoulders. The Light of Greece
is behind you not in front.

"Mubarak's royalist, monarchist pretensions, his plan to install his son Gamal as his successor, truly offended a lot of Egyptians, who found it
humiliating. Humiliation is a powerful motivator in the Middle East."

Originally posted by Erno86
"Mubarak's royalist, monarchist pretensions, his plan to install his son Gamal as his successor, truly offended a lot of Egyptians, who found it
humiliating. Humiliation is a powerful motivator in the Middle East."

It's strange that suddenly, the USA does't feel like stumbling in and knocking over statues of dictators...

"In 2005, Secretary of State Condi Rice chided the Egyptians to be more democratic, but Mubarak continued to stifle his country's vitality.
W. associated his "freedom agenda" with war.
In another irony, one of the reasons Bush decided to do something about the Arab dictatorships was his belief that they were spawning terrorists. But
to try to fullfill his grandoise promise to defeat "every terrorist of global reach,"he needed the cooperation of the same dictators the U.S. has
always supported. And he fell back to relying on the help of dictatorships to try to shut down dictatorships. Instead, he shut down the
democratization process in 2006 after he and Rice were blindsided by Hamas winning the Palestinian elections."

Yeah the US is in a bit of a pickle this time. The dictator was still on our side when his people turned on him. Now we have to end up on the right
side of "history." We arent really concerned about actually supporting democracy, note. If we were principle driven what we should do would be
clear. Support the will of the people to govern themselves.

But thats not our true goal. Our true goal is to make sure each nation in the region our rich overlords want to extract resources from have a leader
that is amenable to that. We run the risk of having the other dictators we support turn on us if we hang Mubarak out to dry. Saddam was easy. Not
only had he pissed us off but he was thumbing his nose and generally harassing other powers in the mid-east.

Thats the problem with these dictators in foreign countries. They arent as good at maintaining the illusion of democracy as our leaders here in the
west are. They get too power mad, and careless, and piss their people off. Its very important to maintain the illusion of freedom, the illusion of
democracy if you want to screw your people out of their nations wealth without having them turn on you. Right America? We have not only had our
wealth stolen, they are running up our credit cards setting themselves up around the world before they dump us like a used up whore.

John Pilger's documentaries brilliantly highlight The US governments fear of true democracies, and its preference for dictators friendly to the US and
compliant to it's wishes. They are certainly worth a watch if you haven't seen them yet.

Same op-ed piece by M.D. nyt titled: Bye Bye, Mubarak
Quote by: Robert Kagan, a senior Brookings fellow, neocon and Iraq war advocate who co-founded the presient Working Group on Egypt, a bipartisian
group of Middle East experts who wanted to get the administration to press Mubarak to be more democratic.

"We were overly spooked by the victory of Hamas. The great fear that people have with Islamist parties is that, that will be the last election. But
we overlearned that lesson and we need to get beyond that panicky response. There's no way for us to go through the long evolution of history without
allowing Islamists to participate in democratic society.
What are we going to do- support dictators for the rest of eterntity because we don't want Islamists taking their share of some political system in
the Middle East? We've got to put our money where our mouth is.
Obviously, Islam needs to make it's peace with modernity and democracy.But the only way this is going to happen is when poeple speaking for Islam take
part in the system. It's incumbent on Islamists who are elected democratically to behave democratically."

Quite a lot of the replies posted here seem to focus on the idea that the only possible successor regime to that of mubarak will be islamic
fundamentalist,sharia based jihad supporting,why should this be the case?
I mean do you honestly believe that the Egyptians would exchange one dictatorial regime for another?
I'm afraid that a lot of you seem to be swallowing the scaremongering "official" American line,if we can't control it and it's iin the Middle
East it must be Islamic Fundamentalist.

And even if that were to be the case,what right do any of us in the west have in interfering with what should be the true demoocratic wish of the
Egyptian people?

What really gets me is the way that the west are sticking their noses in when we are seeing images of American supplied tear gas being deployed,can't
they see that the Egyptian people do not want another western controlled and funded diictator?

It IS surprising that there would be so many people complaining that this was some Islamic thing.

You know what it makes me remember? When BP paid all those people to come on here and cheerlead for BP during the spill. When the various political
parties pay people to come on boards and try to turn opinion. All the posts about how Wikileaks was a CIA front.

Like what was reported this morning about some of the pro-government protesters in Egypt confessing to a reporter that they worked for a petro
chemical company and their employers made them come.

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